Our San Francisco Spa’s Founders

Three young Northern California women put their stake in the ground on Fillmore Street in San Francisco at INTERNATIONALORANGE (IO), a day spa in San Francisco and yoga studio named, meaningfully, for the paint color of the Golden Gate Bridge.

Who are These Women?

OWNER & CO-FOUNDER

Melissa Ferst is of a third generation of Northern California orange growers and a graduate of UC Berkeley. She ran the Random Acts of Kindness Foundation, a non-profit organization and did public relations, brand development, media relations, and event planning for Alexander Ogilvy Worldwide, which drove her to learn, explore and practice yoga as a means of relaxation and growth. She left a dot-com before the slump to add her marketing and organizational skills to help create IO. Melissa has been practicing yoga since 1998 and is a Yoga Instructor, certified by The Mindful Body Teacher Training program.

CO-FOUNDERS

Amy Darland was raised in Marin County and is a Georgetown graduate who worked for Lucasfilm before moving East to William Morris where she helped represent award-winning screenwriters and directors and met Co-Founder, Kary. Amy, a massage lover from birth (mom practiced baby massage on her as an infant and extensive family travel always included relaxation treatments), is a Certified Massage Therapist. Amy’s family now lives on and works their organic farm in the high desert of New Mexico and provide special, high quality organic remedies to IO.

Kary Chendo is a native of Davis, CA and a UC Berkeley graduate who was a technology and business strategy consultant for Accenture Management Consulting, then moved over to William Morris talent and literary agency in NYC, where she met and conceived IO with her then workmate, Amy Darland. As research for IO, Kary went to work with Kiehl’s, the nation’s oldest, NYC-based, skin and body care company. Kary also attended the Christine Valmy International School for Esthetics and Skin Care. She has been a spa aficionado since childhood.

No one thing is going to make the world well, but the energy for intelligent progress, one person at a time, is the answer these women offer with one of the finest spas in San Francsico, INTERNATIONALORANGE.